Big-Shot Newspaper Publisher's Cure for the American Newspaper Industry: Online Gambling
By Mike Seely in Newspapers
Friday, Aug. 7 2009 @ 10:25AM
Hey, it's worked for Indian tribes and school funding (in other states, anyway), so why, asks prominent publisher Mort Zuckerman, shouldn't turning newspaper websites into online sports books help save the ailing industry? Quoth Zuckerman: "Plenty of British papers do this; for them it's a crucial part of their net revenue stream. I know a major newspaper in London that makes $15 million a year from sports betting alone."
As long as it saves jobs and the sport of Jai-alai, whose sorry state of affairs makes newspapering seem flush, we're all for it. If a fronton spares just one at-risk youth from a life of small-time crime, then building that fronton will have been worth it.
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